The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced that the Chandrayaan-3 mission's Vikram lander successfully separated from the propulsion module and is expected to land on the lunar surface on August 23, 2023.

The Vikram lander is named after Dr. Vikram A Sarabhai, the Father of the Indian Space Programme, and is designed to function for one lunar day, equivalent to about 14 Earth days. The lander will carry out its own.

It comprises an indigenous propulsion module, a lander named Vikram, and a rover. Unlike its predecessor, Chandrayaan-3 does not include an orbiter. Instead, its propulsion module acts as a communication relay satellite, decoding the lander's messages and passing them to ISRO.

The propulsion module, which carries the lander and rover configuration until the spacecraft reaches a 100-kilometre lunar orbit, also carries the Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE) payload. This equipment studies spectral and polarimetric measurements of Earth from the lunar orbit, contributing to our understanding of interplanetary missions.

In 2019, on Vikram Sarabhai's 100th birth anniversary last month Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that landing of  Chandrayaan's Vikram Lander would be a befitting tribute to Dr Sarabhai from 130 crore citizens of India.

Vikram Sarabhai is considered the Father of the Indian space program. He was an award-winning physicist, industrialist, and innovator. Earlier called the Indian National Committee for Space Research, ISRO was established in 1962 by him.

Vikram Sarabhai successfully convinced the Indian government of the importance of a space programme after the Russian Sputnik launch.

Vikram Sarabhai's dialogue with NASA in 1966 helped the launch of the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) during July 1975 - July 1976 years after his death in 1971.

He also started a project for the fabrication and launch of an Indian Satellite. As a result, the first Indian satellite, Aryabhata, was put in orbit in 1975 from a Russian Cosmodrome.

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